New Sequence Listing Standard ST.26 Takes Effect on July 1, 2022
Consistent with a change to by implemented by intellectual property offices worldwide, any sequence listing submitted to the USPTO in an application with a filing date or international filing date on or after July 1, 2022 will need to meet the WIPO ST.26 standard. The sequence listing regulations are implemented in 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.831-1.835. The ST.26 standard makes several important changes over the current ST.25 standard, including:
ST.26 standard requires that nucleotide and amino acid sequences provided in a sequence listing must be in extensible markup language (XML) format.
ST.26 standard requires nucleotide analogs, D-amino acids, and linear portions of branched sequences to be provided in the sequence listing if present.
ST.26 standard does not permit inclusion of nucleotide and/or amino acid sequences below the respective length thresholds in the sequence listing.
ST.26 standard sequence listings must be submitted electronically through Patent Center or on a physical medium (e.g., CD or DVD). EFS-Web will not permit an electronic submission of an ST.26 standard sequence listing.
Further details about the ST.26 standard can be found on the USPTO’s website at: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/sequence-listing-resource-center. WIPO has created a free tool called “WIPO Sequence” that can generate ST.26-compliant sequence listings. The USPTO’s PatentIN software cannot generate ST.26-compliant sequence listings.
In any application with a filing date or international filing date on or after July 1, 2022, a ST.25 sequence listing will be rejected as non-compliant by the USPTO.